This blog will be about becoming a writer.

Tag Archives: modern day slavery

2013 was not a good year for me. I spent most of it in dysthymia, a mild, but pervasive, form of depression. I have been prone to bouts of depression, the dysthymia kind, for most of my life. As expected, stress only makes it worse. Well, of course it does. DUH!

The good news is that my novel, Thaumaturge, is now in print — I dealt with a self-publishing company — and it is available at amazon.com, and amazon.ca (for Canadians), and bbotw.com (that’s Infinity Publishing, the self-publishing company based in MA, USA, that I went with in 2013 — the book was in print in March of 2013). And, if you were to type: S.L. Fummerton into your computer, you, like me, would see the other locations worldwide where my paperback book is available. Please believe me, I was SO surprised/stunned and pleased to see that it was available in Australia, Denmark, and France through ebay, or Ex Libris!

I am grateful to Infinity Publishing for making that possible, even though I paid a very nominal fee for the exposure.

Now, even though only a few folk have read Thaumaturge, I am working on a sequel. The working title is now “Weapon”, but that could be changed/revised/even improved, possibly, as that storyline develops and unfolds itself to me. My principal character, Caritas Thaumaturge, is the “weapon” in question, but, even though she has admitted to being a weapon, (that’s in the sequel), I doubt she is truly happy about that dubious distinction; it really is just a reality check on what she has become, physically.

Seriously, after a certain point in the story-telling process, I think an author’s characters start having their own views/opinions/values about themselves. And I think that’s such a good part of the writing process; sometimes the characters show the writers what must happen. (That did happen to me.)

Plot springs from character. I truly believe that. People, like literary characters, and with all their flaws, respond to the situations in which they find themselves. Sometimes the situations are so difficult and traumatic, the characters just don’t know how to deal with them, and they seek solace in alcohol, drugs, either prescribed by folks who should know better, or available from street vendors with their own sets of problems.

So, from here I have to do some serious plot work on chapter 12 to render the actions of characters not only believable, but possible, psychologically and physically, in the particular situation they find themselves. I know from personal experience that that is the only way out.